IMMORTAL Working On New Material

Andreas Aubert of Imhotep webzine recently conducted an interview with IMMORTAL guitarist Demonaz. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Imhotep: It will be seven concerts this year?

Demonaz: "Yes.

Imhotep: After that, what's next?

Demonaz: "Studio album. Abbath and I are working with the material. Abbath has also started to rehearse the songs with Horgh."

Imhotep: Appolyon, is he stand-in?

Demonaz: "No, he is a fullworthy member of the band. A new studio album will be the next thing after these concerts.”

Imhotep: Are you the philosopher in the band? You write all the lyrics…

Demonaz: "Abbath and me started IMMORTAL, and we are the platform in the band. We found a very good drummer in Horgh after the three first albums. He is part of the brotherhood and we could not do without him. I write all the lyrics, and I have been part of this all of the time even though I do not play live (anymore). It has to do with spirit; IMMORTAL is more than a band. It is everything for us."

Imhotep: It is said that the whole is more than the sum of the different parts. Is this the case with IMMORTAL?

Demonaz: "For Abbath and me the most important element is to have the spirit, in order to do IMMORTAL. We have it. We could not have come back if the spirit was not there. The most important for us is the feeling. We are not doing this for others, we do it for ourselves. Of course we do it for the fans as well, but the spirit is the driving force."

Imhotep: So the driving force is self-gratification through the artistic expression?

Demonaz: "Yeah. We share the same art — even though we are different in many ways too."

Imhotep: There seems to be many nature-inspired atmospheres in the music and in the lyrics.

Demonaz: "We get a lot of inspiration from nature; I do in relation to the lyrics. I walk a lot in the mountains on a regular basis. I walk in the forest every day. I can not sit in my living room and write all the lyrics there, I have to go out to get inspiration. I listen to the music, the riffs, and I bring them with me out to get a proper feeling of wholeness. I get that sense of wholeness from being outside. It is much easier to evaluate everything, put it into a system, and find the atmosphere in the music, when I have the right elements around me."

Imhotep: Speaking of the music it is natural to associate it with black metal, but at the same time you definitely have your own sound.

Demonaz: "Yes, it has its own sound. It sounds Immortal. We have never tried to distance ourselves from any scene, but never tried to be part of one either, because we have our sources of inspiration; as said — BATHORY and early black metal, and early death metal, such as POSSESSED and PILEDRIVER. So IMMORTAL have rock n'roll roots, and not all black metal bands have that. Maybe this is what makes us different from other black metal bands."

Imhotep: You said that you often walk in nature while you are writing. Is it something which comes about spontaneously?

Demonaz: "I have always been interested in lyrics, always into image and lyrics, whereas Abbath was most interested in image and best on that. He has taken responsibility for that, and I have taken responsibility for the lyrics and the concept. If I have a tape with Abbath's riff – he has made a new song — I bring it with me, listen to it on headset and walk for hours in nature, to find out what I should do on the song, what is the atmosphere? It has become natural for me to put Abbath's riffs into words. I think it would have been strange for me to do it another way. I have it all in my head, it is there, just as Abbath has all the riffs I develop the lyrics. It is in many respects the same way of working — making riffs and making lyrics.One sits and works with things, and finds out 'fucking hell this songs shall be named mountains of might,' that is how it sounds. It is all fucking natural. If I can not do this, something is wrong. But it is hard to explain to ordinary mortals how it is."

Imhotep: When you find the right lyrics to a song, do you feel physically that 'yes, this is right?"

Demonaz: "To put it this way: every line is thought through. Every word is thought through in order to create a feeling of wholeness in the song. And the title — sometimes we have come up with titles prior to writing the songs. It is easier. You have the title before you have written the lyrics. All the details is a recipe, it has to be right. If not, the song will not work. Everything has to work, so we spend a lot of time on that. I do not spend so much time directly on writing the lyrics, but I spend a lot of energy on it. And I spend a lot of time thinking about it and working with it, it is always there. I cannot sit down and say 'today I am going to write lyrics.' I have it in my body. Abbath's riffs are triggering me. It triggers me to write and explain. Abbath comes with a song; the riffs and the structure are more or less there. Then I shall describe that atmosphere with the words. Then I bring it to Abbath, we work with it and we both know when it is exactly the way it should be. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what happens between him and me. He is an extremely skilled musician and artist, and is very good to judge about what is good concerning lyrics, concept and image."

Read the entire interview at Imhotep.